New Delhi: Indian Railway ranks among one of the largest rail network in the world but it does not have any high-speed rail track. The average speed of trains in developed nations is around 200 kmph whereas in India, the maximum speed of any train hardly exceeds 150 kmph. Rajdhani and Shatabdi are among fastest trains which run nearly at a speed of 120 kmph.

Though, a plan for high speed trains was envisaged six years back and six corridors were identified in this regard but no development could take place after initial surveys.

On the other hand, India’s neighbour China has built world’s largest high speed railway network which is 9,300 Km long. The track length between Beijing and Guangzhou is 2,298 km. China has world’s fastest trains running at the speed of 380 kmph. It is surprising to see that the high-speed railway network was developed in a short span of five years. The proposal for high speed trains had come to fore in 1990 in that country and work had started in 2007.

Moreover, China has also started operations on Maglev trains which use magnetic levitation technology. These trains run few mm above the tracks. China is also working towards expanding the high speed railway network to 20,000 km.

Initially, China used to import high speed trains from Germany, America and Japan. Now, it is capable of developing such trains indigenously.

The high-speed corridors announced in India include Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi-Patna, Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar, Hyderabad-Vijaywada-Chennai, Chennai-Bengaluru-Coimbatore-Ernakulam, Howrah-Haldia.